State health authorities are playing down the seriousness of the spike in flu cases, even though doctors say clinics are bursting at the seams with probable sufferers.
Surprising data released by the National Epidemiology Institute Wednesday took the number of deaths from flu in Jalisco during the current season to ten, 12.5 percent of the country’s total. The state is also registering the highest number of confirmed cases, 298.
Nonetheless, government officials say there is no cause for alarm, despite the fact that some doctors are complaining of being hopelessly overworked, and many school classrooms are half empty.
The flu season spike coupled with a shortage of Tamiflu in area drugstores has forced the Secretaria de Salud de Jalisco (SSJ) to dip into its own reserves to allow patients of private doctors with prescriptions for the antiviral to obtain the medication.
As of last Friday, Tamiflu has been distributed to all patients who take their prescriptions to the SSJ office at Baeza Alzaga 107 in the Guadalajara city center (open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.). On the first day of the program, 220 people were given the medicine, while 60 were refused because their symptoms were not conclusive with the flu.
By Wednesday, staff said they had distributed some 1,200 packets of the drug, perhaps indicating that the spread of flu is even wider than the official numbers suggest. Alternatively, doctors may merely be erring on the side of caution and prescribing Tamiflu (oseltamivir) to anyone with the slightest indication they might be suffering from the flu, including those who are at minimum risk of complications. While the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that clinicians use their discretion to prescribe oseltamavir to treat those at lower risk, health agencies in some other countries say it should be prescribed only for people who have complications or are at high risk for complications who present within 48 hours of their first symptoms of infection.
The SSJ and the Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social (IMSS) both say they have sufficient supplies of Tamiflu to cover any eventuality that may arise in the coming weeks. The manufacturers of Tamiflu, Roche, says 94,000 boxes of of the drug have been distributed to both the public and private health sectors in Mexico during the 2015-16 flu season.
Nonetheless, the SSJ will start to distribute zanamivir in addition to Tamiflu, Health Secretary Jaime Agustin Gonzalez announced last week. Licensed in 2006 and marketed by GlaxoSmithKline under the trade name Relenza, zanamivir is a powder for oral inhalation used for the treatment of infections caused by the influenza A and B viruses. In the United States and Mexico, zanamivir and oseltamivir are the only anti-viral drugs prescribed to treat the H1N1-type flu virus (previously known as swine flu.
What has also taken authorities by surprise is that this year’s strains appear to be affecting young people in higher numbers than usual. Some schools report much higher than average rates of absenteeism due to students’ respiratory problems.
To counter this, the SSJ has introduced a flu vaccination program in public schools in Jalisco and set up filters to identify students who may have symptoms. Meanwhile, the University of Guadalajara says it has vaccinated 14,000 of its high school and higher education students.